Shortly after I broke up with the ex-Human (like, literally four days later), I met a guy at a bar.

“Are you a straight man?” I asked him.

He said yes.

“Are you married?”

He hesitated, and then said no.

I asked again, and again he said no.

Now we’ve gotten that out of the way.

We talked for a while. He was a painter, so we discussed art a bit. I’m sure we talked about dogs. We danced a little bit, and then I left the bar to go somewhere else with new friends I had made. He texted to ask if I wanted to go back to my place. I said no, but he could come join me at the second bar.

“Seems favorable,” he said. “There in ten.”

He kept his word. We had a few drinks. He pawed at me in the way drunk people do when they’re flirting. I asked him to walk me home and then, in a moment of weakness, asked him upstairs. I felt horrible about it immediately after he left, and resolved not to have any more one night stands. Apparently that’s not something that works for me anymore. Maybe this is what not being self-destructive looks like? Regardless, I learned my lesson.

The next morning, the guy texted me to say it had been nice meeting me, but he was going through a divorce, and his head was really messed up.

I’m not stupid. I’ve dated/slept with/whatever enough married men to know that that means, “Actually, I’m married, so…yeah. Can’t do that again.”

At first I played along. And then I just said, “Listen. I know that means you’re married. Whatever, you do you.”

He replied, simply, “Thanks.”

But it made me feel even worse. Like, not only had I had a shitty one night stand, the guy was married. Which I asked him about twice. Point blank, “are you married?” twice.

And it gets better.

He lives in my neighborhood. Crown Heights is a small community. Today he showed up in my newsfeed because he had posted on a friend’s wall. Obviously, I looked to see how long he’d been married.

Not even a year. That’s right, he got married in October of 2014.

So, like, he’s an asshole. No question there. But also – he’s stupid. What if I was insane and wanted to ruin his marriage? We are one degree of separation away on Facebook. I could so easily find his wife and fuck everything up for him.